Ultima The Ultima Underworld I & II Thread

[mindx2]

Thanks.

Depends on the platform. If on windows, i think just dropping them there works fine. Then you need to use the game installer to select the mt32 (or midi device, or whatever they call it).

... and it works perfectly!!! I can hear a subtle difference already in the music. What are the major differences in the audio?

Now once again I'm being drawn into The Stygian Abyss and can't seem to drag myself away... man, this is STILL such a great game!! Nostalgia or rose-colored glasses my butt!!!

 

[octavius]

... and it works perfectly!!! I can hear a subtle difference already in the music. What are the major differences in the audio?

Splashing water, swimming, swords striking something hard sounds like just that, instead of some wishy-washy weak effects that make you wonder if the sound is buggy.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Hmm... rummaging through my game collection, it turns out that the most recent version I have of the Underworld games are from the RPG Archives collection that Interplay released somewhere around 1997. Does anyone here know whether they're patched versions or not?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Munt has come a long way indeed, after reading this thread I decided to give it another go - last time I had tried it was a couple of years ago, and it was very buggy. Now, it's really almost perfect. That Korean Dosbox build is awesome as well, for other reasons (although the Munt integration is great in itself).

I feel like replaying UW and Betrayal at Krondor with glorious MT-32 music now.

 

[Sceptic]

Hmm... rummaging through my game collection, it turns out that the most recent version I have of the Underworld games are from the RPG Archives collection that Interplay released somewhere around 1997. Does anyone here know whether they're patched versions or not?

They must be. The patch came out in 92 or 93 and all subsequent compilations are patched.

Fun fact: I used the levitate spell to get the blueprints for the mad dwarf, then ended up using his flying potion to get around some hard to reach areas on the third floor

That's exactly what you're supposed to do. There are a few places accessible only by Fly or Levitate.

I also found the sword blade on level 3 by using a scroll that let me see secret doors, picked up on level 4. I was searching in the wrong spot, and would never have guessed it.

That's because you were not paying attention or missed on a clue. You are told somewhere about a secret door behind vines on the wall. The spot with the secret door is one small section of wall, in the area where you're told the blade is, and it is the ONLY section of wall in that entire area with vines on the wall. Granted it IS one of the more difficult hidden secrets to find, especially since the secret door won't appear on the map until you click on the vines to move them.

Someone mentioned the artifacts being the key to some of the puzzles, but I have the Taper of Sacrifice and the Standard of Honor but when I look at them I get short descriptions.

Don't worry about this for now, it'll become clear later on. Do notice that some of the artifacts can be used in place of normal items - the Taper as a light source, the Sword as a sword, and so on. One mechanics spoiler: the Sword is unbreakable. It's not as powerful as the best weapons you can find, but it's convenient to not have to worry about durability (and you save on some encumbrance).

I haven't found the four levers that allow me to get the Ring of Humility yet.

You'll get there, just keep exploring. You don't have to do everything on one level before moving to the next, and you will have to backtrack, but do try to get as much done as possible before moving to lvl 7 (don't worry if a few things are left unfinished though). And keep a save just before lvl 7, just in case.

find an old woman's lost love and get some metal for a wizard. I have no idea how to complete these tasks, however, as I am missing either secret doors or some such. I haven't even met the level 5 friendly compound yet.

The metal should be easy to get to from near the wizard himself IIRC (there's a teleporter). For the woman, as usual take notes and keep exploring. The lvl 5 friendly compound is directly at one of the stairs from lvl 4, so you probably entered from another side. You may want to find it sooner than later, for a couple of reasons (not essential ATM though).

 

[Excidium]

Also if you haven't learned that yet, there are rune combinations that you have to find out by yourself. There is one that will come quite handy on the lower levels.

Spoiler

specially if you are dumb like me and threw the worm stew recipe away because "I already got the ingredients in a bowl anyway"

Hmm... rummaging through my game collection, it turns out that the most recent version I have of the Underworld games are from the RPG Archives collection that Interplay released somewhere around 1997. Does anyone here know whether they're patched versions or not?

press alt+f7 in-game to see which version it is. Most recent one I think is 1.94.

 

[mindx2]

Wow, never knew the music and sounds were so different with the Roland emulation! The sound of water is a huge difference as well as the deeper base of the music when walking.

 

[yellowcake]

To those in the know about MIDI music in UWs - there's a way of making UWs use AWE32 wavetable directly. You have to download "Real & Protected Mode AWE32 John Miles Audio Interface Libraries", overwrite some files in the game folder and select roland MT32 in the configuration. That's how was my last playthrough at the time. Is this Roland hack you people talk about much better than that?

 

[SCO]

Wow, never knew the music and sounds were so different with the Roland emulation! The sound of water is a huge difference as well as the deeper base of the music when walking.

Then you are in to a treat replaying some Sierra and Lucasarts games.

 

[SCO]

Hmm... rummaging through my game collection, it turns out that the most recent version I have of the Underworld games are from the RPG Archives collection that Interplay released somewhere around 1997. Does anyone here know whether they're patched versions or not?

press alt+f7 in-game to see which version it is. Most recent one I think is 1.94.

I just restarted it from my archive and it says : Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss vF1.50S

Now i'm annoyed because there doesn't seem to be a LGS patch anywhere on the web.

 

[Excidium]

This patch here http://reconstruction.voyd.net/zips/uw1patch.zip updates it to 1.87S.

 

[Jaesun]

Hmm... rummaging through my game collection, it turns out that the most recent version I have of the Underworld games are from the RPG Archives collection that Interplay released somewhere around 1997. Does anyone here know whether they're patched versions or not?

I have the Ultimate RPG Archives as well, and the Ultima Underworld version on there is VF1.94S (I just checked).

 

[Great Deceiver]

To those in the know about MIDI music in UWs - there's a way of making UWs use AWE32 wavetable directly. You have to download "Real & Protected Mode AWE32 John Miles Audio Interface Libraries", overwrite some files in the game folder and select roland MT32 in the configuration. That's how was my last playthrough at the time. Is this Roland hack you people talk about much better than that?

It's not exactly a hack, and I would assume the MT-32 native mode in games sounds better than any wavetable, by simple virtue of being fully programmable, and dynamic. Definitely worth a try.

 

[mindx2]

Wow, never knew the music and sounds were so different with the Roland emulation! The sound of water is a huge difference as well as the deeper base of the music when walking.

Then you are in to a treat replaying some Sierra and Lucasarts games.

Yep, after a run through the Stygian Abyss I may have to take a trip down Lucas Arts road. Which games take advantage the most of the Roland sounds/ music? Never had such any easy emulation setup before and never was able to get the Roland MT-32 thing to work until now. The Korean DosBox build is great. A huge to the guy who made it! It truly adds a new level of... dare I say it... immershun to UW1 that I've not experienced before!

 

[SCO]

Wow i was trying to pick up the bag at the start like a retard for 3 minutes until i realized the game has a special mode to pick up and use stuff. Newer user interfaces have spoiled me.

mindx2 : most of the early sierra/lucasarts/many other companies games have stupendous mt32 music since it was the device the musicians composed for before 'downgrading' for pc speaker and adlib. A notable exception is Cryo - i think their kgb/dune etc sound superior on adlib/soundblaster

 

[Excidium]

Wow i was trying to pick up the bag at the start like a retard for 3 minutes until i realized the game has a special mode to pick up and use stuff. Newer user interfaces have spoiled me.

You can also pick up by holding the mouse button and dragging it to your inventory. You don't need to use the interface buttons except to go in combat mode (which can also be activated by left clicking your equipped weapon), right click examines and right click hold and drag interacts with things like NPCs and doors.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Thanks for the help guys, I'll probably have the game up and running later tonight.

I leafed through the UUW1 Cluebook today, mostly because I realized that I had it lying around and had never really read it. It's written from the perspective of the villain, and while it isn't an all-encompassing detailed guide to everything in the Abyss, it has some wonderful tidbits in it, like how he causes mischief in some small and insidious ways. Remember the forgetful Mountainman engineer who's lost his blueprints, who claims that he knows where a Flying potion can be found? The villains says that he put a potion of Poison right next to it to confuse and torment him. The cad.

There's also some other interesting bits of info, but these are mostly related to gaming mechanics, and not outright spoilers.

# While the Lore skill works on all items that the Avatar looks at, it works best when the Avatar looks at items he has in his inventory. In other words, distance penalizes the skill.

# The carrying capacity of containers is based on the weight of the items within, not on their volume. Backpacks can carry 25 stones, crates and sacks can carry half that, a bowl can carry 5 stones and a pouch only 2 stones worth of stuff.

# The maximum possible level of a skill is determined by which class you pick during character creation. The maximum is always 30, but sometimes it's capped at 25, or possibly even lower. (I have no further details on this.)

# Of some runes there is only one found in the entire game, namely the Corp, Des, Ex, Kal, Lor, Quas, Uus and Wis runes. Some of these are found very early in the game, so make sure to check the first floor carefully.

 

[Excidium]

Read the Memoirs of Sir Cabirus too, it gives a background to the story and describes the monsters and stuff in-character. It's a fun read. And also the manual, there's at good hint at page 12.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I just finished playing Pac-Man on level 5 of the Stygian Abyss.

On Level 6 I encountered an unresponsive specter named Warren.

:D

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Regarding the Pac-Man quest: Visit the Mage again later for your reward. The real problem is figuring out how to use it.

As for Warren:

Spoiler

If you know how to cast Sheet Lighting, then you've 'talked' to Warren. Game mechanics only permit you to speak to other critters, so in order to fake the conversation with the door, which is very clearly not a critter, they had him being close by and set to start a conversation with you when you interacted with the door.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Heh. I almost killed Warren before getting to that point. I probably would have run into just a locked door I couldn't open. I found a medallion on the 7th level that would have gotten me past the guards, but what fun is that? I spent my time killing every one of them, then fleeing to get healed. Unfortunately, I can't open the cell doors since I haven't found the key and I've only explored the sw corner of the map because of I can't seem to get to the rest.

I am now on the second level, but with a moonstone after experimenting with a scroll that I had been lugging around for awhile in my backpack. I needed to heal up anyway after finishing off the last troll and orc on the seventh level. I now have the sword, shield, candle, book, bottle and banner artifacts. Still no luck on the ring and I don't know what the 8th artifact is yet.

 

[octavius]

One silly thing in the UU games is that portcullises can be locked and unlocked with keys and the unlock spell.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Deuce Traveler: The 'proper' way through the checkpoints is, from the stairs that brought you here: North across the bridge, then go SE. Checkpoint 1. Then go south past a door, turn west and cross a small bridge and keep going south from there. Checkpoint 2. From there go west, crossing the river then turn north and cross the river AGAIN. Checkpoint 3. The fourth and final checkpoint is at the end of a series of twisty passages beyond that, and places you pretty close to the central northern point of the map. IIRC, the key that allows you to open all the checkpoint doors is on one guard at the final checkpoint, it was either a red or brown key. So my approach would be to feign friendship and find the head guard, then bash his skull in and work your way backwards and kill everyone, clearing a path.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I finally had a go at getting UW1 running. For the first time since I first bought it and played it, over 20 years ago, I heard every single part of the intro being played.

However, I am having another problem now, the mouse is sluggish, sometimes unresponsive.

 

[octavius]

However, I am having another problem now, the mouse is sluggish, sometimes unresponsive.

Crank up the mouse sensitivity in the DosBox .conf file.
sensitivity=250 worked well for me.